A lot has changed in just a few days. In Germany we're not yet on full lock-down like they are in France and Italy, but things feel very strange indeed. In theory all "non-essential" shops are closed but I went for a run yesterday (I checked and it's allowed -- "even encouraged") and saw even an ice cream shop open. I believe officially restaurants are allowed to be open but only from 11:00 to 15:00 and everyone has to be at least 1.5 metres apart. One thing that seemed very normal was going to the grocery store. It wasn't overly crowded or eerily empty -- just normal. In general, all of the shelves were stacked how I'm used to seeing them (even the toilet paper aisle!) except there was a lot less selection in the pasta aisle. Normally it's basically an entire aisle of different brands and types and yesterday there was basically only a few boxes of whole wheat pasta left sitting in the corner (yuck).
Our office is officially completely closed and -- like most office workers -- we are in work-from-home mode. This presents interesting and difficult challenges especially since, as we all know, schools are closed and will be for the foreseeable future. Not only adults are getting cabin fever; kids seem to perhaps even go crazier more quickly. But of all the things that are closed vs. things that are operating as usual, a lot of it feels very arbitrary. We keep getting mail, for example, which seems to me a perfect way for a virus to continue traveling across the globe. Delivery places are all open but must follow a "no touch" delivery procedure where you pay online and the delivery guy rings your bell and leaves the food at the door. All well and good, I suppose, but I'm kind of more concerned with the person who actually made the food than the guy who delivered it, to be honest.
Reports coming out of England and (of all places) Alberta have officials suggesting that schools will stay closed until at least September. If the virus and the inability to travel or be social or buy the things you need doesn't scare you, the idea of your kids being at home with out for the entire spring, summer, and potentially the fall definitely will.
Signing off from the trenches.
Wednesday, March 18, 2020
Friday, March 13, 2020
Life in the trenches (aka Europe)
As I entered the final year of my 30's, the world entered the uncharted territories of the long-awaited Great Global Pandemic. I would say it's only in the last day or so that things have started to really kind of feel weird -- even unsettling. The office attendance has been dwindling slowly for the last couple of weeks but hit the precipice today where it really feels like a Ghost Town. Walking the streets of the city centre is kind of neat but also rather eery because there really are noticeably a lot less people out and about. So far (as of last night) the grocery store was business-as-usual but some small groups of products were conspicuously lacking in stock (e.g. pasta and some canned foods). I think this could quickly change perhaps over today and tomorrow especially as things are closed -- as always -- on Sunday. All schools, kindergartens, and daycares were cancelled today until mid-April (the 17th to be exact -- so far). Fun times ahead for sure. How serious are things getting? Sure, schools are cancelled, no one's at work, and it's hard to find your favourite pasta. BUT, the Starkbierfest was just cancelled. Bavarians cancelling a rich-in-history festival celebrating the creation of a beer for the sole purpose of getting through religious fasting? Something really profound is clearly happening. What's next? I suppose only time will tell.
Thursday, March 5, 2020
Spanien
In February 2020 Pemulis and family -- Joelle, Helga, and Heinrich -- went to Spain. Just as the Covid-19 (aka Coronavirus) was ramping up its path of destruction, Pemulis and Co. attempted to escape said path by traveling to beautiful Andalusia and try to if at all possible reduce some of their daily stresses.
TL;DR: sort of worked, sort of didn't.
One nice thing about living in the general environs of the geographical centre of Europe is that it's fairly easy and relatively inexpensive to get to all sorts of nice places. That includes, of course, the region of Andalusia, and following a 2.5 hour uneventful-ish flight originating from Franz Josef Strauss we touched down in the wonderful city of Málaga (or, as is the case with nearly all airports, just outside of the city). It was here that we picked up our trusty Peugeot, hoped that I installed the child seats at least relatively correctly, and asked Siri to guide us up into the mountains around Ernest Hemingway's favourite Spanish city, Ronda.
We arrived at our temporary home in the hills north of Ronda just before nightfall. As is always the case, we were in a rush to get our children fed so that they might become a little less whiney and difficult, and then get them to bed. While generally much appreciated, the 4-course meal probably wasn't the best thing to be placed on the agenda for this particular evening, but the food was good and no one left the hotel due to our children ruining their expensive romantic dinner (that we know of).
Despite being exhausted, it took the usual 8 hours to get Heinrich to sleep which -- if you're doing the math at home -- means that we didn't sleep at all. But that's nothing out of the ordinary so the following morning our somehow-used-to-not-getting-any-sleep-at-all bodies managed to get everyone dressed and to breakfast before everything was dismantled for the day. Three aspects of Spanish culture that really align with my worldview / life philosophy / whatever you want to call it, are: (1) late meals; (2) taking forever to do anything; and (3) sleeping all afternoon (aka the famous "siesta"). Unfortunately, each one of those aspects -- which I can't stress enough attune with my vibe, so to say, just perfectly -- are 100% diametrically opposed to how a child lives his or her life (especially our children). Perhaps "taking forever to do anything" fits quite nicely with some of Helga's predispositions such as her affinity to requiring 45 minutes to take even the first bite of a single piece of toast before leaving for Kindergarten in a mad rush. But things like waiting for food to come and staying in your seat or remaining somewhat quiet are so completely foreign to her that one would think me and my daughter consist of entirely different species. Let's not even think about the possibility of having a siesta...
One very nice thing about our hotel and that matched point (1) above (late meals) is that we had a nice setup whereby the chef would whip up some pasta around 6:30, Helga and Heinrich would (mostly) eat it, we'd put them to bed, and then head back to the dining room around 9:00 for the "real" dinner. We actually pulled this off on 4 out of 7 nights which is pretty impressive. You've already read about the first night where we arrived to the hotel at the actual dinner time anyways so we all ate together. The two other nights where a romantic adult dinner did not work out were on non-consecutive evenings where each of us suffered some kind of stomach bug. But every single other night the kids went to sleep, we walked down to the dining room, ate a long drawn-out dinner with very good wine from the region, and returned to the room without any major disasters having occurred. Not bad!
Because we stayed in a somewhat mountainous region, we were excited to get in some training runs for our quickly approaching 64 km ultra trail race in the Alps. That didn't exactly work out as we hoped it might, but we did manage to do a little bit of running/hiking and rather than actually getting any training in, the main thing that these few outings accomplished was showing us that we are completely and woefully unprepared for this upcoming event and there's basically no way that we will be because who has time / possibility to go to the mountains and run for 6 hours when you have two small children? Kind of a dumb mistake on our part but I've made worse mistakes in my life, so...
Above you'll see my longest run of the trip which was still only 10 km. I managed to get some "climbing" in but if you can read the contour lines in the picture it was only about 400 m elevation change at most. But that tiny amount destroyed my legs for the entirety of the vacation and it was only 10 km and at most 400 m up. The race (in about 100 days from now) is 64 km through the Alps with 5000 m of climbing. Shiiiiit as they say.
Anyways, other parts of our trip were also nice. The food in Spain is very good and not very expensive. It was sunny every day and around 20 degrees. One day we met up with a friend and his daughter who live in Málaga in a nearby town -- Setenil de Las Bodegas -- which is famous for many of the buildings being built right into the side of the rocky mountain. It's pretty cool...
Another day we drove into Ronda proper, walked on the famous bridge, visited the famous palace (at least the outside of it), and of course ate some pizza. Throughout all this I'm glossing over the fact that it was never all that relaxing because Helga was always doing something like trying to run away or have a screaming fit in the street or jump into oncoming traffic or refusing to eat what she ordered or spilling food all over herself and into her hair or Heinrich was crying because he was tired or hungry or needed to be changed or whatever. But throughout it all we never had to actually make any food or clean any dishes so in that sense things were somehow maybe somewhat easier than at home. It didn't necessarily feel like it at the time though... Strange...
All in all: 9/10. Nice place, good weather, great food, not enough to keep kids occupied.
TL;DR: sort of worked, sort of didn't.
One nice thing about living in the general environs of the geographical centre of Europe is that it's fairly easy and relatively inexpensive to get to all sorts of nice places. That includes, of course, the region of Andalusia, and following a 2.5 hour uneventful-ish flight originating from Franz Josef Strauss we touched down in the wonderful city of Málaga (or, as is the case with nearly all airports, just outside of the city). It was here that we picked up our trusty Peugeot, hoped that I installed the child seats at least relatively correctly, and asked Siri to guide us up into the mountains around Ernest Hemingway's favourite Spanish city, Ronda.
We arrived at our temporary home in the hills north of Ronda just before nightfall. As is always the case, we were in a rush to get our children fed so that they might become a little less whiney and difficult, and then get them to bed. While generally much appreciated, the 4-course meal probably wasn't the best thing to be placed on the agenda for this particular evening, but the food was good and no one left the hotel due to our children ruining their expensive romantic dinner (that we know of).
Despite being exhausted, it took the usual 8 hours to get Heinrich to sleep which -- if you're doing the math at home -- means that we didn't sleep at all. But that's nothing out of the ordinary so the following morning our somehow-used-to-not-getting-any-sleep-at-all bodies managed to get everyone dressed and to breakfast before everything was dismantled for the day. Three aspects of Spanish culture that really align with my worldview / life philosophy / whatever you want to call it, are: (1) late meals; (2) taking forever to do anything; and (3) sleeping all afternoon (aka the famous "siesta"). Unfortunately, each one of those aspects -- which I can't stress enough attune with my vibe, so to say, just perfectly -- are 100% diametrically opposed to how a child lives his or her life (especially our children). Perhaps "taking forever to do anything" fits quite nicely with some of Helga's predispositions such as her affinity to requiring 45 minutes to take even the first bite of a single piece of toast before leaving for Kindergarten in a mad rush. But things like waiting for food to come and staying in your seat or remaining somewhat quiet are so completely foreign to her that one would think me and my daughter consist of entirely different species. Let's not even think about the possibility of having a siesta...
One very nice thing about our hotel and that matched point (1) above (late meals) is that we had a nice setup whereby the chef would whip up some pasta around 6:30, Helga and Heinrich would (mostly) eat it, we'd put them to bed, and then head back to the dining room around 9:00 for the "real" dinner. We actually pulled this off on 4 out of 7 nights which is pretty impressive. You've already read about the first night where we arrived to the hotel at the actual dinner time anyways so we all ate together. The two other nights where a romantic adult dinner did not work out were on non-consecutive evenings where each of us suffered some kind of stomach bug. But every single other night the kids went to sleep, we walked down to the dining room, ate a long drawn-out dinner with very good wine from the region, and returned to the room without any major disasters having occurred. Not bad!
Because we stayed in a somewhat mountainous region, we were excited to get in some training runs for our quickly approaching 64 km ultra trail race in the Alps. That didn't exactly work out as we hoped it might, but we did manage to do a little bit of running/hiking and rather than actually getting any training in, the main thing that these few outings accomplished was showing us that we are completely and woefully unprepared for this upcoming event and there's basically no way that we will be because who has time / possibility to go to the mountains and run for 6 hours when you have two small children? Kind of a dumb mistake on our part but I've made worse mistakes in my life, so...
Above you'll see my longest run of the trip which was still only 10 km. I managed to get some "climbing" in but if you can read the contour lines in the picture it was only about 400 m elevation change at most. But that tiny amount destroyed my legs for the entirety of the vacation and it was only 10 km and at most 400 m up. The race (in about 100 days from now) is 64 km through the Alps with 5000 m of climbing. Shiiiiit as they say.
Anyways, other parts of our trip were also nice. The food in Spain is very good and not very expensive. It was sunny every day and around 20 degrees. One day we met up with a friend and his daughter who live in Málaga in a nearby town -- Setenil de Las Bodegas -- which is famous for many of the buildings being built right into the side of the rocky mountain. It's pretty cool...
All in all: 9/10. Nice place, good weather, great food, not enough to keep kids occupied.
Thursday, January 30, 2020
Small Fry
Editor's Note: this is an entry from our "submitted blogs by readers" series. The author has requested to remain anonymous.
Many weeks ago I read an excerpt from a book called Small Fry in a magazine called Vanity Fair (symbolism of worldly ostentation and frivolity?). The book is a memoir by Steve Jobs's (Apple co-founder, eventual CEO then outcast then CEO again) daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs. The excerpt is short -- around 3000 words -- and sad. Like uber-sad. One of the saddest things I ever read. At first I thought "I won't read that book, it seems too sad" but I was drawn to it. Like a moth to a flame (I should trademark that). I pre-ordered the book on a website called Amazon (heard of it?) and even though it was not set to be released for another 10 days or so, it arrived early, in late August. Every page of the book is sad (so at least the excerpt wasn't false advertising). But I just couldn't stop reading it. I read the whole book -- 381 pages -- in one day while I was supposed to be working (something to do with trains). I was addicted to the sadness and though reading it made my heart feel heavy, I enjoyed the feeling, like although it was unpleasant, it was something strong and it meant something. Somehow it was important.
I felt intense sympathy for the author (not empathy though because come on). I wanted to hug her. In some strange fantasy I imagined that I could meet her and we could be friends and I could comfort her and say things like "you are a good person and no one should have ever done those mean things to you". Of course it's ridiculous but I thought I could tell her something like you deserve to be loved too.
I'd never thought so much about the actual author behind the words, even for other autobiographies (in the highly originally titled "Clapton: The Autobiography" which believe it or not is an autobiography by Eric Clapton, I just kind of felt bored once he stopped being a crazy drug and alcohol addicted rockstar). I wondered how her, or anybody really, remembers such specific memories from their lives. ... His voice was so sharp that I wondered why they bought them at all. "We need them to make ours," he said. So computers make computers, I thought. After that we said goodbye to the men and walked back up stairs. How does she remember these scenes and who said specifically what and at what time? Is she inventing it? Do other people have memories like this? I can't remember detailed conversations from earlier this morning, let alone many years ago. Is she special in that way and that's why she can write such an affecting book? Or am I deficient in some way that I can't imagine being able to remember details like this?
I read the book so fast that I was sad when it was over (obviously one would feel sad after reading all that sadness, but I meant I was sad that there wasn't more sadness to read about!). And whenever I would pick up the book after just a few sentences it would change who I was. I would start making plans in my head that at that time there was a strange mixed feeling of both believing that I would do these things but also knowing that once I stopped reading and a little bit of time went by I would go back to normal and wouldn't feel as strongly about doing those things anymore and most definitely wouldn't actually do them.
Once, I held a brief thought that was: I'm glad I bought her book because she deserves to have success. I want her to know that she's talented both because I think she is but also because she's suffered. Then I think about how she's allegedly inherited millions of dollars from her father and then money doesn't seem as important. And then I think that money can't do anything because of the emotional abuse that she seems to have encountered as a child. And that causes me to realize that I believe that once someone has been emotionally abused that they can never be whole, no matter what happens much later in life -- even being a successful writer. And extending that further maybe any kind of trauma means you can never be whole or fully happy, whatever that might be. But everyone eventually goes through something sad in life and so if that thought is true then from the moment we're born we're just on an eventual course to never being whole again. That's pretty depressing. Good thing it was just a brief thought. And maybe I should stop reading such sad books.
Many weeks ago I read an excerpt from a book called Small Fry in a magazine called Vanity Fair (symbolism of worldly ostentation and frivolity?). The book is a memoir by Steve Jobs's (Apple co-founder, eventual CEO then outcast then CEO again) daughter, Lisa Brennan-Jobs. The excerpt is short -- around 3000 words -- and sad. Like uber-sad. One of the saddest things I ever read. At first I thought "I won't read that book, it seems too sad" but I was drawn to it. Like a moth to a flame (I should trademark that). I pre-ordered the book on a website called Amazon (heard of it?) and even though it was not set to be released for another 10 days or so, it arrived early, in late August. Every page of the book is sad (so at least the excerpt wasn't false advertising). But I just couldn't stop reading it. I read the whole book -- 381 pages -- in one day while I was supposed to be working (something to do with trains). I was addicted to the sadness and though reading it made my heart feel heavy, I enjoyed the feeling, like although it was unpleasant, it was something strong and it meant something. Somehow it was important.
I felt intense sympathy for the author (not empathy though because come on). I wanted to hug her. In some strange fantasy I imagined that I could meet her and we could be friends and I could comfort her and say things like "you are a good person and no one should have ever done those mean things to you". Of course it's ridiculous but I thought I could tell her something like you deserve to be loved too.
I'd never thought so much about the actual author behind the words, even for other autobiographies (in the highly originally titled "Clapton: The Autobiography" which believe it or not is an autobiography by Eric Clapton, I just kind of felt bored once he stopped being a crazy drug and alcohol addicted rockstar). I wondered how her, or anybody really, remembers such specific memories from their lives. ... His voice was so sharp that I wondered why they bought them at all. "We need them to make ours," he said. So computers make computers, I thought. After that we said goodbye to the men and walked back up stairs. How does she remember these scenes and who said specifically what and at what time? Is she inventing it? Do other people have memories like this? I can't remember detailed conversations from earlier this morning, let alone many years ago. Is she special in that way and that's why she can write such an affecting book? Or am I deficient in some way that I can't imagine being able to remember details like this?
I read the book so fast that I was sad when it was over (obviously one would feel sad after reading all that sadness, but I meant I was sad that there wasn't more sadness to read about!). And whenever I would pick up the book after just a few sentences it would change who I was. I would start making plans in my head that at that time there was a strange mixed feeling of both believing that I would do these things but also knowing that once I stopped reading and a little bit of time went by I would go back to normal and wouldn't feel as strongly about doing those things anymore and most definitely wouldn't actually do them.
Once, I held a brief thought that was: I'm glad I bought her book because she deserves to have success. I want her to know that she's talented both because I think she is but also because she's suffered. Then I think about how she's allegedly inherited millions of dollars from her father and then money doesn't seem as important. And then I think that money can't do anything because of the emotional abuse that she seems to have encountered as a child. And that causes me to realize that I believe that once someone has been emotionally abused that they can never be whole, no matter what happens much later in life -- even being a successful writer. And extending that further maybe any kind of trauma means you can never be whole or fully happy, whatever that might be. But everyone eventually goes through something sad in life and so if that thought is true then from the moment we're born we're just on an eventual course to never being whole again. That's pretty depressing. Good thing it was just a brief thought. And maybe I should stop reading such sad books.
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Imagine being able to do things
First a message to the future: Helga and Heinrich, if you read this, please don't feel bad. It's just that you took up a lot of time and were really quite exhausting. But I'm pretty sure all kids back then were like that. Of course now that it's the future modern science has probably figured out how to keep babies / children happy and the advances in child psychology, philosophical understanding of the requirements of the soul to live a good life, and discoveries in biochemistry, neurology, and nanotechnology have rendered misunderstandings and difficulties in family life to the dustbin of history. But back when I wrote this we didn't have all that and so I just needed to vent a little bit.
Now the content.
Imagine being able to do things! To seek inspiration for new (or even old but re-tooled) subject matter to fill in the spaces on this here blog, I took a trip down memory lane and visited some of our earlier entries back in the pre-November-2015 days, and it really seems like things were pretty nice back then! For example, there is a veritable boatload of pictures of Pemulis and Joelle together from soon after we arrived in Grenoble. I defy you to find more than one from the last year or more. We don't have time for that sort of thing! And even if we did, the ravages that time and sleep deprivation have inflicted on my body including most definitely its appearance prevent me from wanting to be anywhere within hundreds of metres of Joelle when the possibility of being framed by a camera lens is extant because having those contrasts of my aged hideousness beside her continuous beauty fills the Instagram filters with dread, foreboding, and any other word meaning roughly the same thing. But yeah, having those pictures of us together looking young is pretty nice. Glad I took em and posted them.
Next come the photographs of the food we both made and purchased so that we could consume. But let's focus primarily on the former. Imagine having time to make food! I refer of course to actual food rather than the umpteenth rendition of cheesy pasta or grilled cheese (thank goodness for cheese and its ability to melt on to and around food). One notices further in these gastronomically themed photographs that we were often (or perhaps essentially always) able to enjoy such delights of the culinary senses paired with some very fine French wines. Imagine drinking an entire bottle of wine in this political climate! One surely needs more than our standard 3 hours of heavily interrupted sleep per night to even dream of partaking in such an activity.
One might move next to the trips. The weekend getaways. The long-loved European capital city trip. Amsterdam. Paris. Rome. Instead if one were able to actually find the time to go somewhere our hard-earned money would more than likely rather be spent on hauling everybody to one of two places: (1) Canada which of course isn't bad at all but it's a little far for a long weekend; or (2) some "kid-friendly" hotel which requires both a swimming pool and a Spielplatz and which then implies there will highly unfortunately exist other guests who are classified as children. Too, too bad.
But I'm sure that one day, not far from now, Pemulis and Joelle will wake up after a long night's uninterrupted sleep and will hear no pitter-patter of small feet running across the hardwood or (more realistically) screaming and yelling from a fight over a toy. They will realize that the golden years of their children's childhoods has passed them by and they are now alone and they will long for the days of yore much as this author is doing right now for another bygone time. But then again, maybe not...
Now the content.
Imagine being able to do things! To seek inspiration for new (or even old but re-tooled) subject matter to fill in the spaces on this here blog, I took a trip down memory lane and visited some of our earlier entries back in the pre-November-2015 days, and it really seems like things were pretty nice back then! For example, there is a veritable boatload of pictures of Pemulis and Joelle together from soon after we arrived in Grenoble. I defy you to find more than one from the last year or more. We don't have time for that sort of thing! And even if we did, the ravages that time and sleep deprivation have inflicted on my body including most definitely its appearance prevent me from wanting to be anywhere within hundreds of metres of Joelle when the possibility of being framed by a camera lens is extant because having those contrasts of my aged hideousness beside her continuous beauty fills the Instagram filters with dread, foreboding, and any other word meaning roughly the same thing. But yeah, having those pictures of us together looking young is pretty nice. Glad I took em and posted them.
Next come the photographs of the food we both made and purchased so that we could consume. But let's focus primarily on the former. Imagine having time to make food! I refer of course to actual food rather than the umpteenth rendition of cheesy pasta or grilled cheese (thank goodness for cheese and its ability to melt on to and around food). One notices further in these gastronomically themed photographs that we were often (or perhaps essentially always) able to enjoy such delights of the culinary senses paired with some very fine French wines. Imagine drinking an entire bottle of wine in this political climate! One surely needs more than our standard 3 hours of heavily interrupted sleep per night to even dream of partaking in such an activity.
One might move next to the trips. The weekend getaways. The long-loved European capital city trip. Amsterdam. Paris. Rome. Instead if one were able to actually find the time to go somewhere our hard-earned money would more than likely rather be spent on hauling everybody to one of two places: (1) Canada which of course isn't bad at all but it's a little far for a long weekend; or (2) some "kid-friendly" hotel which requires both a swimming pool and a Spielplatz and which then implies there will highly unfortunately exist other guests who are classified as children. Too, too bad.
But I'm sure that one day, not far from now, Pemulis and Joelle will wake up after a long night's uninterrupted sleep and will hear no pitter-patter of small feet running across the hardwood or (more realistically) screaming and yelling from a fight over a toy. They will realize that the golden years of their children's childhoods has passed them by and they are now alone and they will long for the days of yore much as this author is doing right now for another bygone time. But then again, maybe not...
Tuesday, January 14, 2020
The 2010's
All you need to know about the 2000's is that the Y2K bug didn't come around as expected and following that disappointment it was kind of just a string of one let-down after another. I did start the decade in pre-Gilets-Jaunes-Paris which was kind of nice; but then I also spent nearly an entire year living in the North of England so... I met my future wife and eventually got married, embarking on a future with my life-long love at my side, but in addition to that I not only spent 3 years in law school but also threw away almost an entire year working as a corporate IP lawyer in downtown Toronto. Yuck. I guess ultimately the decade just had a way of balancing itself out. The 2010's on the other hand, for the most part they were not all bad.
Oh wait. I just remembered that on March 22nd, 2006, our McGill Intramural Hockey team won the championships and I scored the game-winning goal. So the 2000's were actually amazing. But now on to the 2010's...
We started the decade off at a rustic resort in Algonquin Park which would have required us to re-mortgage our home if we had one to afford our two-night stay (instead we just extended Sandi's line-of-credit), but we were just setting the tone for the years ahead. Just five days into the decade, we really started our triathlon careers off in earnest when we attended our first ever (and of many) Guelph Triathlon Club workouts, having joined our erstwhile club some days prior. I got a Ph.D. We went snowboarding and attended at least one Guelph Storm game. One of which I remember quite clearly came soon after Canada had won Olympic Hockey Gold in Vancouver against the US with Crosby's overtime goal (that was another great 2010's moment -- but back to the Storm). It was quite surreal; the family that had billeted Drew Doughty when he played for the Storm was at the game and got a standing ovation. Weird stuff.
We went to Sudbury for a wedding (ok, so the 2010's weren't all good). Our friend Gustavo came to Canada and we spent a lot of time at the cottage. We did a lot of triathlons. We went to Vancouver which was great except that we both got food poisoning eating raw oysters and the sickness really asserted itself and came into its own on the plane ride back home; fun stuff! We attended a Darling Family Reunion. We did a portion of a bike trip that went around Lake Ontario. Sandi and I won best new triathletes of the year. We did the Niagara Falls Marathon. We did Around The Bay and I beat everyone in our family. Boo-yaa. Catherine had an ugly Christmas sweater party (and we attended). I took the iPhone gaming world by storm with the creation of the inimitable Yummy Bugs.
The Watson Jeopardy! game happened. I went to Dublin and got to hang out with Roger. Sandi and I went to Newfoundland which was pretty rad. I went to Portland, of all places. Thony came to Canada and we did the Peterborough Half Ironman race. Dad turned 60 (and a bunch of other ages over those 10 years). I went to Grenoble and then accepted a job there. So, naturally, we moved to Grenoble. Went to Annecy, Montpellier, Avignon, Marseille, Nice, Roanne, Antibes, and a bunch of other great places in France. We went to Sweden and did Ironman Kalmar with Thony. Then five years later we went to Copenhagen and did another Ironman with him. I went to Bern and to Brussels. Neither were that exciting (Delft was even worse).
We went to Barcelona and that was great. In fact, I'm surprised a whole decade went by and we only went there once. Kevin and Jillian visited us in Grenoble and didn't even bring any kids. Then several years later they visited us in Munich and brought a kid. We moved to Munich! Jesse also visited us in Europe in both France and Germany. We saw Ben Harper at the Nice Jazz Festival with him and then Sandi and I saw Ben Harper in all kinds of other European cities for the next several years (Hannah even saw him in Italy). We went to Paris with Linda and Sarah. We went to Prague. We went to Oktoberfest about 50 times.
We went to London. I went to Cambridge. That wasn't even so bad. We flew to Amsterdam for my birthday way back in 2014. We must have had soooooo much time because we didn't have any kids! We had kids. Two of them. Both in this decade. But not at the same time, thank God. We went to Lanzarote, also pre-kids. Phew. We went to Sweden a couple more times. I did a bike race. That was kind of dumb, though. Dumb of me to do it, I mean. We did a lot of holidays in Austria. Hannah loved each one more than the last. We did the Florence marathon. Then I ate the biggest steak anyone has ever seen and I drank a lot of really really really really really good wine. At least it tasted really really really really really good at the time. And it probably was really really really really really good too.
We flew to Canada probably 15 times. Oh! We went to Greece. And it snowed -- in April! We went back to Florence again. And it was super hot -- in May! We went to Nice to watch Thony in the Ironman France. It was even hotter -- in June! We went to a wedding in Romania. And it was hotter again -- above 40 -- in July! We went to Canada for one of those times in the summer and it wasn't all that hot but we went to Kit's wedding. Good times. And then they came to Munich for their honeymoon. And it was kind of cold. But also kind of rad.
We got a Smart Trainer and it was great in our old place when we had room to set it up. Now it's not so great sitting in the basement in a box. I went to China. Not all things in the 2010's were good. We bought an apartment for some reason. Tom came to visit and we climbed some mountains. Sandi, Hannah, and I went to Cinque Terre. We found out that Hannah loves boats. We went to Thony's wedding in Sweden and Sarah came too. We stayed at a Swedish cottage. We ate pickled herring for goodness sake. I went to Redmond. We went to Switzerland for Easter. And another time to Sicily. Both were good. Oh! The best: we drove all the way to Piemonte. We went to Barolo and Asti and all those good places. We had a small child but at least there was never a dull moment. At least I don't think there was. Sleep deprivation has destroyed almost all of my memory cells. We met Kit and Tim on the Mont Blanc.
We went to Berlin. Sarah came to visit. Hannah started French Kindergarten. I went back to Grenoble. Over the course of seven years I learned 3% of the German language (rounding up). We attended the ballet. Sandi ran a trail running race through the Alps. I got a new job. Actually I guess several new jobs over the course of the 2010's. I went to California finally. Multiple times.
And most importantly of all, to end the decade, Sandi got one bitchin' watch. Let's hope the 2020's bring just as much (or even more -- if that's possible [the watch is more than just bitchin']) good.
Oh wait. I just remembered that on March 22nd, 2006, our McGill Intramural Hockey team won the championships and I scored the game-winning goal. So the 2000's were actually amazing. But now on to the 2010's...
We started the decade off at a rustic resort in Algonquin Park which would have required us to re-mortgage our home if we had one to afford our two-night stay (instead we just extended Sandi's line-of-credit), but we were just setting the tone for the years ahead. Just five days into the decade, we really started our triathlon careers off in earnest when we attended our first ever (and of many) Guelph Triathlon Club workouts, having joined our erstwhile club some days prior. I got a Ph.D. We went snowboarding and attended at least one Guelph Storm game. One of which I remember quite clearly came soon after Canada had won Olympic Hockey Gold in Vancouver against the US with Crosby's overtime goal (that was another great 2010's moment -- but back to the Storm). It was quite surreal; the family that had billeted Drew Doughty when he played for the Storm was at the game and got a standing ovation. Weird stuff.
We went to Sudbury for a wedding (ok, so the 2010's weren't all good). Our friend Gustavo came to Canada and we spent a lot of time at the cottage. We did a lot of triathlons. We went to Vancouver which was great except that we both got food poisoning eating raw oysters and the sickness really asserted itself and came into its own on the plane ride back home; fun stuff! We attended a Darling Family Reunion. We did a portion of a bike trip that went around Lake Ontario. Sandi and I won best new triathletes of the year. We did the Niagara Falls Marathon. We did Around The Bay and I beat everyone in our family. Boo-yaa. Catherine had an ugly Christmas sweater party (and we attended). I took the iPhone gaming world by storm with the creation of the inimitable Yummy Bugs.
The Watson Jeopardy! game happened. I went to Dublin and got to hang out with Roger. Sandi and I went to Newfoundland which was pretty rad. I went to Portland, of all places. Thony came to Canada and we did the Peterborough Half Ironman race. Dad turned 60 (and a bunch of other ages over those 10 years). I went to Grenoble and then accepted a job there. So, naturally, we moved to Grenoble. Went to Annecy, Montpellier, Avignon, Marseille, Nice, Roanne, Antibes, and a bunch of other great places in France. We went to Sweden and did Ironman Kalmar with Thony. Then five years later we went to Copenhagen and did another Ironman with him. I went to Bern and to Brussels. Neither were that exciting (Delft was even worse).
We went to Barcelona and that was great. In fact, I'm surprised a whole decade went by and we only went there once. Kevin and Jillian visited us in Grenoble and didn't even bring any kids. Then several years later they visited us in Munich and brought a kid. We moved to Munich! Jesse also visited us in Europe in both France and Germany. We saw Ben Harper at the Nice Jazz Festival with him and then Sandi and I saw Ben Harper in all kinds of other European cities for the next several years (Hannah even saw him in Italy). We went to Paris with Linda and Sarah. We went to Prague. We went to Oktoberfest about 50 times.
We went to London. I went to Cambridge. That wasn't even so bad. We flew to Amsterdam for my birthday way back in 2014. We must have had soooooo much time because we didn't have any kids! We had kids. Two of them. Both in this decade. But not at the same time, thank God. We went to Lanzarote, also pre-kids. Phew. We went to Sweden a couple more times. I did a bike race. That was kind of dumb, though. Dumb of me to do it, I mean. We did a lot of holidays in Austria. Hannah loved each one more than the last. We did the Florence marathon. Then I ate the biggest steak anyone has ever seen and I drank a lot of really really really really really good wine. At least it tasted really really really really really good at the time. And it probably was really really really really really good too.
We flew to Canada probably 15 times. Oh! We went to Greece. And it snowed -- in April! We went back to Florence again. And it was super hot -- in May! We went to Nice to watch Thony in the Ironman France. It was even hotter -- in June! We went to a wedding in Romania. And it was hotter again -- above 40 -- in July! We went to Canada for one of those times in the summer and it wasn't all that hot but we went to Kit's wedding. Good times. And then they came to Munich for their honeymoon. And it was kind of cold. But also kind of rad.
We got a Smart Trainer and it was great in our old place when we had room to set it up. Now it's not so great sitting in the basement in a box. I went to China. Not all things in the 2010's were good. We bought an apartment for some reason. Tom came to visit and we climbed some mountains. Sandi, Hannah, and I went to Cinque Terre. We found out that Hannah loves boats. We went to Thony's wedding in Sweden and Sarah came too. We stayed at a Swedish cottage. We ate pickled herring for goodness sake. I went to Redmond. We went to Switzerland for Easter. And another time to Sicily. Both were good. Oh! The best: we drove all the way to Piemonte. We went to Barolo and Asti and all those good places. We had a small child but at least there was never a dull moment. At least I don't think there was. Sleep deprivation has destroyed almost all of my memory cells. We met Kit and Tim on the Mont Blanc.
We went to Berlin. Sarah came to visit. Hannah started French Kindergarten. I went back to Grenoble. Over the course of seven years I learned 3% of the German language (rounding up). We attended the ballet. Sandi ran a trail running race through the Alps. I got a new job. Actually I guess several new jobs over the course of the 2010's. I went to California finally. Multiple times.
And most importantly of all, to end the decade, Sandi got one bitchin' watch. Let's hope the 2020's bring just as much (or even more -- if that's possible [the watch is more than just bitchin']) good.
Wednesday, December 4, 2019
It's Christmas Time and I'm Losing my Mind
Pemulis woke in relief, there was a chill in the air, he felt beads of sweat, where once there was hair. He looked to the window, all he saw was white blankets, of snow on the ground, and then he heard a loud sound. And Helga was there, on a sleigh in the backyard, hanging lights on the trees.
Pemulis tried to speak but no words came, he adjusted his eyes, and saw the Christmas tree was aflame. I ran to the door, but no one could see me, and then it came to my ears, in a Christmas-time melody. I walked down the stairs, and brewed me a coffee, I was there just in time, to see Nikolaus out from the chimney.
Helga just then burst inside through the door that was ajar, to the living room with a, pet Igel she found, in the snow-covered backyard. How grateful I was that the Igel was still alive, but then I felt worried, when I saw the babies that numbered five. She told me she wanted, to keep them for Christmas, at least she wasn't screaming -- that was a bonus.
The tree was still ablaze, and don't forget Nikolaus was there too, though from some fumes in the kitchen, he looked a little dazed. With the fire and the Igels and Helga covered in snow, Pemulis decided, that it was time for him to go. He put on his jacket and his gloves and his boots, he had a real bad feeling, Helga and Nikolaus were in cahoots.
The Igels began to laugh as Joelle appeared in the room, she was wielding an ash tray, and a rather long broom. They ran for the door only to see that it was closed, Heinrich crawled after them, bouncing off his toes. And Helga was still there and she broke the window quickly, to free all the Igels, and they escaped quite quickly. But the tree was still on fire, so I grabbed a glass of wine, and threw it at the tree, which did the job just fine. The room was full of smoke and a pile of ashes that smelled, like a fine Barolo, and a tree that was just felled. And Nikolaus looked around, at the disaster before his eyes, so he followed the Igels, yelling wait up guys!
Things were finally settled, almost quiet like a whisper, then the neighbor woke up, to make use of his wood chipper. Joelle had had enough, so she stepped aside into the snow, and yelled at the neighbor, TURN THAT OFF YOU EFFING HO!
Pemulis tried to speak but no words came, he adjusted his eyes, and saw the Christmas tree was aflame. I ran to the door, but no one could see me, and then it came to my ears, in a Christmas-time melody. I walked down the stairs, and brewed me a coffee, I was there just in time, to see Nikolaus out from the chimney.
Helga just then burst inside through the door that was ajar, to the living room with a, pet Igel she found, in the snow-covered backyard. How grateful I was that the Igel was still alive, but then I felt worried, when I saw the babies that numbered five. She told me she wanted, to keep them for Christmas, at least she wasn't screaming -- that was a bonus.
The tree was still ablaze, and don't forget Nikolaus was there too, though from some fumes in the kitchen, he looked a little dazed. With the fire and the Igels and Helga covered in snow, Pemulis decided, that it was time for him to go. He put on his jacket and his gloves and his boots, he had a real bad feeling, Helga and Nikolaus were in cahoots.
The Igels began to laugh as Joelle appeared in the room, she was wielding an ash tray, and a rather long broom. They ran for the door only to see that it was closed, Heinrich crawled after them, bouncing off his toes. And Helga was still there and she broke the window quickly, to free all the Igels, and they escaped quite quickly. But the tree was still on fire, so I grabbed a glass of wine, and threw it at the tree, which did the job just fine. The room was full of smoke and a pile of ashes that smelled, like a fine Barolo, and a tree that was just felled. And Nikolaus looked around, at the disaster before his eyes, so he followed the Igels, yelling wait up guys!
Things were finally settled, almost quiet like a whisper, then the neighbor woke up, to make use of his wood chipper. Joelle had had enough, so she stepped aside into the snow, and yelled at the neighbor, TURN THAT OFF YOU EFFING HO!
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